Mon, 30 Jan 2023 12:25:00 +0000

FORCED MIGRATIONS BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE:

PLACES, SOCIETIES AND IDENTITIES

The history of relations between the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and the Levant is long and not free of contradictions: a singular history, made up of conflict, but also of common interests and strongly interconnected social and economic dynamics. A history raised on the exercise of otherness, exchange and unambiguous interculturality.

The maritime hostility that has occurred in the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean-Atlantic axis since the beginning of the early modern age has caused the captivity of thousands of individuals from the machetes in confrontation, in a long process that lasted until the beginning of the 19th century. It is estimated that during this period, about one million and two hundred thousand people were captive, either because of military conflicts or seized by privateers and pirates at sea or in coastal maritime and island areas.

The coexistence in the same territory of populations of different origin, the result of these forced migrations alongside those who moved freely, forced the rulers of the kingdoms and cities that received these migratory waves to determine the degree of integration and inclusion in the social and productive fabric of newcomers and to define the policies to be adopted.

Relations between the kings of Europe and North Africa, more peaceful or more contentious, have shaped a set of common diplomatic practices and norms. The peace and trade treaties stipulated bear witness to the long history of shared economic trade and trade, political and military negotiations between the two seacoasts. Exchanges that progressively weaved a network of contacts, mediators and references for credits, exchanges, and circulation of information.

The coexistence of members of different religious beliefs and nationalities called into question the legal models, cultural and social standards of each group, which, obliged to share the same urban space, had to, whether they wanted it or not, reach agreements to ensure coexistence.

The rescue economy, a fundamental theme of the Mediterranean and Atlantic border, in a world changing and moving, insecure and dangerous, in which the captive waits for the return to the land of origin on the other side of that border or, to survive or by choice, chooses to change on the political or religious side (the renegades). The study of concrete cases of rescue missions (religious and not) and the analysis of credit networks and agents involved in the trade in captives allow us to overcome the concepts of infidel and enemy and reveal the transversal nature of the interests at stake in the rescue negotiations. The real conflict was not between Christians, Muslims, and Jews, but between captives and captive merchants of any origin, in a conflict of interest, totally transversal to political and confessional borders.

This congress is organized within the framework of the exploratory project MOVING CITY (EXPL/HAR-HIS/1521/2021), which aims to know the human personnel who were part of the Battle of Ksar El-Kebir (1578). The project focuses, in addition to the military history of the event itself, on the study of the rescues of the captives caused by the battle and, more generally, the captives of the war of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Corsican.

To encourage interdisciplinarity and plurality of dialogue, the call for communication proposals for researchers from different thematic areas is open. The papers may be presented in Portuguese, Spanish, English, or French, framed in thematic lines such as the following:

- Migration, free or forced, and coexistence in the same territory;

- Integration of the migrant population into host societies and policies adopted by local authorities;

- Mobility and military practices

- Relations between agents (merchants, consuls and religious) of different nationalities;

- Networks of contacts and circulation of information;

- Languages, lingua franca and forms of contact;

- Diplomacy, passports, and safe conduct;

- Coexistence of members of different religious confessions;

- Adaptation of different jurisdictions and cultural and social standards in the sharing of urban space;

- Rescue economy and the Mediterranean-Atlantic economic and social fabric;

- Study of concrete cases of routes and rescue missions.

projectmovingcity - Presentation

FORCED MIGRATIONS BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE:

PLACES, SOCIETIES AND IDENTITIES